I was delighted to be invited to speak at the CTPC conference yesterday, in a session titled, "Transportation and a Vibrant Economy: Economic Assessment's Role and Application in Transportation Investments and Economic Development" My talk focused on the role of Benefit-Cost Analysis as a tool in guiding public investment decisions, and I described my recently published report on benefit-cost analysis for transportation planning and public policy, as well as some of the new directions I plan to pursue.

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

My co-author Jae-ho Pyeon and I are putting the finishing touches on a draft manuscript that we've been working on titled "Analyzing the Potential of Hybrid and Electric Off-Road Equipment in Reducing Carbon Emissions from Construction Industries." This manuscript is the result of a project sponsored by the US Department of Transportation. (The DOT builds and funds a lot of highway construction, and apparently this explains their interest in this topic.)

In the course of carrying out this research I've learned a lot about construction equipment and this has at times made me feel like a kid playing in the sandbox again. In addition this project has raised as many questions for me about urban air pollution as we have answered, and I plan to keep studying construction topics. In this post, I am sharing some observations, questions and photos from walks I've taken around construction sites in San Francisco. Next month, I will post the draft manuscript.

Students in my classes have been busy searching for data for their term papers. Often, the variables needed for an analysis are contained in separate files and must be merged. Merging, an importing data management task, can be accomplished using a spreadsheet like MS Excel or a statistical software package like Stata. This article describes how to complete a merge in Excel, and is written for students or others who are completely new to data management and spreadsheets.

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

This semester, I became San Jose State University's campus representative to the Social Science Research and Instructional Council. The SSRIC provides valuable resources to the California State University campuses, including access to a variety of data. I personally have made extensive use of their subscriptions to ICPSR and Field Poll surveys in my past research (here is one example).

In May of next year, the 40th Annual CSU, SSRIC Social Science Student Symposium will be held at CSU Sacramento. Details are here. In 2013, one of my co-authors, Marc Joffe, was a winner of the Gloria Rummels Award for Best Use of Quantitative Data. I hope one of my students can take a prize in the near future!

Monday, November 23, 2015

In my classes where we study or review statistical inference, I often give the following example of a hypothesis test concerning a single mean: you suspect your sardine cans contain fewer sardines than indicated on the packaging. The packaging says there are 10 sardines per can but you are often finding 8 or 9. So, you open up 100 cans and find the average is 9.5 with a standard deviation of 1. Is this evidence that the tins are lighter than advertised?

The first part of my talk stressed fascinating trends in U.S. transportation and residential selection patterns, especially the fall in driving and growth of cities over the last few years. I then discussed both my US and California research, and I briefly discussed my India research. Finally, I discussed some of my thoughts on SJSU's South Campus, an area that straddles some of San Jose's most beautiful parks, and some of the country's worst hazardous waste sites. Here I applied the results of my US and California research to make urban planning suggestions for San Jose.

As I mentioned, I will updating this post as soon as I have the link to the video. For now I'm glad to be done giving talks and teaching a while, and getting back to my India research!

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Last night I gave the first lecture in our graduate IO course. I have taught the undergraduate version of this course more than a half dozen times, but this is only my second time for the grad class. For the first part of the class, the main textbook is Hal Varian's Intermediate Microeconomics with Calculus. Why is this a good choice for a IO class in San Jose, California?

Sunday, November 23, 2014

Last Spring I taught two sections on Principles of Microeconomics, one online, and one in a traditional format. I have spent some time comparing the outcomes, and wrote up my findings in this discussion paper. Here is the abstract:

Saturday, November 15, 2014

I have not been blogging much lately, but I have been busy with other writing projects. Over the last couple of months, I've been working with co-authors and today posted revised manuscripts to the web for the following three papers; the first two papers relate rather closely to one another, while the third is part of a very different research program:

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Last month I did some work for the California Open Education Resources Council (COERC). I reviewed three "open" principles of microeconomics textbooks for them. After I completed this job, I decided to write up and elaborate on my review, and I'm now sharing it here.

I have used two of the three books in my own teaching, and in general I've paid close attention to this segment of the textbook market. As a result I am able to comment on not only the books themselves, but also developments in this industry. If you are an instructor considering adopting an "open" textbook, my review is for you.

If you are a donor who wants to support the development of open educaitonal resources, my review is also for you!

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

In an earlier post I discussed the Bay Area Bike Share program, which is coming up on its one year anniversary. BABS has released several detailed data sets that cover the first half year of operations, and held a challenge for "...anyone
with a bit of curiosity to present the data in visually compelling ways."

Thursday, July 10, 2014

One of my colleagues in the economics department at SJSU, Tom Means, is the former mayor of Mountain View. He tells some interesting stories about how a lack of economic understanding on the part of some urban planners leads to poor decision making.

Monday, June 30, 2014

Thursday, May 29, 2014

In 1910, 25% of metropolitan (non-rural) residents lived in suburbs; by 2000, this figure had more than doubled, with 62% of Americans who lived in metropolitan areas living outside of central cities. (these calculations come from data presented on p. 33 of this Census publication.)

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Last year, a report by the Pew-MacArthur Results First Initiative, States’ Use of Cost-Benefit Analysis, evaluated the use of Cost-Benefit Analysis by states. Among the questions it asked were, "Are states conducting cost-benefit analyses?" and "Do they use the results when making policy and budget decisions?"

Monday, April 28, 2014

Monday, April 21, 2014

In California and some other parts of the country, very few homes have basements. The reason for this remains a mystery to me. Many cite earthquakes as the reason but I don't find this a compelling explanation.

The International Transportation Economics Association is a small organization that occasionally puts out a newsletter. Two recent newsletter articles caught my attention. I discuss the first here and the second in a subsequent post.